Underwater Cabling

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/datablog/interactive/2012/feb/28/undersea-internet-cable-map-interactive http://www.telegeography.com/research-services/global-bandwidth-research-service/index.html http://www.jpnap.net/english/jpnap-tokyo-i/traffic.html

For the amount of data that gets transmitted daily, it’s probably surprising that most of it goes through only a handful of cables less than 3 inches wide. These cables are responsible for modern day communication, and when they go down, such as during the 2011 Japan Earthquakes, it can have a severe effect on the internet and data usage for the entire country.

Maps exist to visualize which cables go where, but it would be interesting to attach usage data to these cables. In doing so, users can play around with the effects that each cable has and even simulate how natural disasters would affect worldwide internet usage by “cutting” cables.